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Exposing Some of the Meanest and Pettiest Men in History

Khalid Elhassan January 20, 2021 32 min

Jane Greer - Out of the Past — Jane Greer with Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past. Associated Press

23. Laval Met a Well-Deserved Traitor’s Death

Pierre Laval, second from left, with Hitler and Herman Goering. L’Histoire par L’Image

Pierre Laval was convinced that Germany would win WWII, so he eagerly collaborated with the Nazis to secure France a favored position after the war. During the Vichy Regime, he served as vice president of the Council of Ministers for five months in 1940, until dismissed by Petain. Laval returned to power and headed the Vichy government from 1942 until the liberation of France in 1944. In an infamous 1942 speech, he declared his hope that Germany win the war. A traitorous jerk through and through, he avidly persecuted the French Resistance.

Pierre Laval on trial for treason after the war. Encyclopedia Britannica

Laval also rounded up Frenchmen for labor in Germany and the German war effort, and helped round up and deport French Jews to the concentration and extermination camps. Arrested by the Free French after the liberation of France, he was tried alongside Petain after the war on charges of high treason. Laval tried to justify his treason by arguing that he had France’s best interests in mind all along, but to no avail. He was convicted and sentenced to death. After a failed suicide attempt by poison, he was executed by firing squad on October 15, 1945.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.